


Ad Ana Adonai?

by Corvid_Knight, Michael Stonožka (JewJitsue)



Series: Demonstuck [41]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, Dybbuk - Freeform, Gen, Religion, collab fic, im unreasonably attatched to gale now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-24
Packaged: 2019-10-15 13:23:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17529536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JewJitsue/pseuds/Michael%20Stono%C5%BEka
Summary: Gale goes on their first job with the Striders, and runs up against some aspects of their past that they've tried to forget.





	Ad Ana Adonai?

**Author's Note:**

> (cowriter here. fixed all the wild mistakes in the ending i missed bc i wrote it at 3am and passed out without proofreading it. you'll notice this is something of a trend in my work lmao. am i making these edits also at 3am? dont worry abt it)
> 
> ((corvid again; I'm just gonna move this into notes instead of summary dude lmao))

Your name is Gale (although it wasn't always) and—

(at eight years old you memorized the mourner's kaddish, alien syllables forcing their way through you. You did not look at your father as you recited it for your mother because you _knew_ the words would leave your head and your throat would go tight and full of tears if you saw the complete lack of expression on his face)

(at thirteen you looked in the mirror on the day of your birth and wished so hard that your eyes were only your mother's rather than one for each parent and no, nothing happened, but later your father pulled you aside and told you to take the colored contact that you weren't wearing out and you panicked so badly you managed to botch the ceremony)

(at fourteen you looked him in the eyes and moved your hands in a way that felt _right_ , felt _powerful,_ and he looked at you like he didn't know you because told him he never had a son and it became true for him in more ways than one—and at fourteen you moved in with the first boy who'd ever kissed you except he wasn't a boy, he was a man and you weren't a boy either but you were too young but if you were older he never would have been able to catch you so easily)

(at fifteen he hurt you one too many times in one too many ways and you hurt him back with that thing behind your eyes that shouldn't exist, what you'd given in to and admitted was magic, you hurt him perhaps to the point of death but you never knew because you ran again)

(at sixteen you killed with your mind out of fear and you ran, and at seventeen you tried not to kill even though you were just as afraid and the men you worked your magic on somehow decided that you were one of them now, and just like that you somehow had a family again)

Your name is Gale, and you remember almost none of that. Not when you're awake. Which you are. You're awake, and six syllables of Hebrew that you _do not remember_ the meaning of made their way out of your mouth before you woke up all the way and slapped both hands over your mouth, sat up and nearly fell off the couch you apparently fell asleep on.

At least it's the right couch. The one in the safehouse. And no one's in the room with you but Davepeta, who's crouched in a somehow sinuous heap on the coffee table, shades pushed up into their curly two-tone hair so you can see that their orange-and-green eyes are fixed on you.

"I didn't say anything," you protest before they actually react at all. _Stupid._ At least it comes out muffled because your hands are still up; maybe they'll be able to assume you said something that made sense...

Nope. Davepeta cocks their head to one side, feline ears flicking in a way that actual cat ear headbands never would. They weren’t even looking at you. "You sure?"

"...I don't remember saying anything." Lying sends a spike of fear up into the center of your head; the content of this specific lie intensifies it. _I don't remember any of that. I don't. None of it._ You should have a gesture for making yourself forget—you've used it often enough—but you can't remember what it is.

Ah. Irony.

You settle for twisting your fingers together in your lap, then pulling them apart with a motion that could be scared or could be angry and is probably the latter even though you're always too scared to really _get_ angry, and even the words for the _concept_ of the prayer you almost began fade from your mind. The front of your mind, anyway. All the magic you've ever managed to summon can't wipe the memories of the prayers your father taught you away completely.

_Stupid!_

And Davepeta is still watching you, like you're some small animal they're about to test the edibleness of. After another minute, they ask, "Bad dream?"

"Um." Close enough. " ...yeah. Bad dream. Did, uh. Did anybody else make it home yet?"

You kind of expect a no; there was alcohol at the wedding reception last night, and the Striders don't drive impaired. Usually. Unless it's an emergency. Then again, Grey could have easily been the ferryman; as far as you can tell alcohol simply doesn't affect him. Then again—

"Yeah, they all got home last night. Maybe this morning." Davepeta shrugs and hops off the coffee table, wings spreading and flexing as they stretch. "But like, Hal's been on the phone for like an hour, so if you're gonna take a shower you should purrobably do that now."

"Uh… why?"

Bright green/orange eyes meet your own mismatched ones for just a second, before the chimera shrugs and slides their shades back into place. "Because I think they've got a job, duh."

Oh.

Okay.

You shake your head to drive away the rote memory that says there's other things you need to do before you move, and head for the closest bathroom.

* * *

You're seriously starting to wonder if running water messes with your powers, because halfway through trying to wash your hair you completely lose all ability to block out the stuff you usually manage to forget. Then again, the breakdown of your mental wall really started yesterday.

It was a wedding. That's the worst part of it. It was a _wedding_. Everyone was supposed to be happy, and guess what? You fucked that up. Like, you don't even know if you managed to smile in the right places, that's how consumed you were with the need to not think about any of what was going on. Of your knowledge of it.

Which you're not thinking about now.

Not at all.

You're...

Okay, so you should finish the shower and get out of it. You're also not Dirk; this doesn't calm you to the point of falling asleep even on a _good_ day, and even if it's only like nine in the morning, it's already apparent that today is not a good day.

Instead of doing the smart thing (leaving the bathroom, going to your room, changing into clothes that you didn't sleep in before you put anything on your face) you fish your eyeliner out of one of your pockets and force your hands to go steady enough to apply it. The very fact that you _have_ it in your pocket just adds another layer of discomfort to your mental state; sure you can write off your habit of stashing anything you don't want to lose in your pockets as a carryover from when you didn't know when you'd need to pick up and run, but stashing makeup is from even before that. It's from "convincing" your cousins or girls at school to buy that stuff for you, keeping it on you because you couldn't control whether your father went through your room but he never actually searched _you._

See, now you're thinking about him again. Damn.

At least your eyeliner looks good enough to draw attention to itself, instead of your mismatched eyes underneath it. You make a face at yourself, stow the eyeliner back in your pocket, and leave the bathroom.

* * *

Maybe you took longer than you thought in the shower, because when you step into the kitchen D's leaning over Hal's shoulder, doing the computer equivalent of backseat driving. Dave's perched on a stool where he can see the screen, but from the brighter red cast of his eyes you think that it's Karkat looking through them.

You want to wonder what's going on, but you're not really a hunter and there's coffee in the pot, so you cross your fingers and think _don't look at me_ and step over to the cabinet to retrieve a cup. If you listen...well, who's going to blame you?

(You. You are going to blame you. That's not actually going to stop you from pretending that you can't find a cup and thus need to keep standing there and very carefully moving the rest of the cups that are not the correct one around.)

Of course, just listening means that you don't dare turn around to see the three of them, but hey. At least you're getting _something._

"Remind me again why the fuck they didn't call us first?" That's D, and you can read something between fury and guilt in the rough tones around the edges of his voice. "This shit wouldn't happen if—"

"There's a limit to how much we can harangue them, D." Ouch. Hal's making an obvious effort to keep his voice level, but under that he's angry too. "People died."

"They didn't fuckin' have to!"

"This is why you're not allowed to field phone calls. Where's Grey, anyway? Go let him calm you d—"

"Getting Dirk and his boyfriends up. This is an _everybody_ thing, okay, we're not—"

"Everybody as in we take the _kids_?"

"Wh—fuck no, that's not—"

You've heard enough. Either you're counted in as a kid, or you'll end up watching them. It's fine.

It's fine.

So why do you feel so shitty about slipping back out of the room with your cup of coffee?

* * *

Two more cups of coffee, and you feel ready to drop the _don't look at me_ magic that you've been holding around yourself for a good hour and a half. The fact that the actual hunters are obviously on the very edge of being ready to leave does play a part in this decision; you'll feel bad when they go, but at least you won't feel this specific kind of bad.

Wait, that doesn't make sense. Why are you like this?

You sigh, try to accept that there kind of isn't an answer to that, and sink down low enough on the couch that your empty cup of coffee is about eye level when you let it rest on your chest. The mildly evil Santa is now free to make eye contact with you. Why does John still have this cup out, anyway? It's halfway through January, literally all the other holiday stuff is safely packed away. Some of it's packed away in another dimension, actually. Which is totally normal. Nothing to worry about there.

"Ah shit, Gale—"

D's voice makes you jump and scramble to sit up properly; the cup bounces off your leg, the coffee table, and the rug before rolling onto the bare floor. You're not really sure if it stays intact through your desperate desire to not break anything, or through its probably-cursed status.

D seems less concerned about this than you, though; the way he leans down and snags the cup is more-or-less automatic. "C'mon, kid, we gotta go."

"But I—"

"Look, Dirk's draggin' ass so you got a lil' extra time 'cause you can ride with him 'n Hal's crew, but you still gotta hurry, okay? You—"

Are you panicking because the guy who's known for talking is talking over you? Yes. Yes you are. And usually this would motivate you to just nod and cooperate, but an almost year-old memory is enough to prompt you to squeeze your eyes shut and recite almost in one word, "I'm not a hunter and I'm not _reliable_ and I'm not _trained_ and I don't belong on a hunt and Hal would definitely back me up on this!"

Wow. Not one hesitation, not one verbal stumble. When was the last time you managed _that_?

(You know the answer to that question and honestly you do not care for it at all.)

Even with your eyes closed, you can almost _feel_ D staring at you in what you're going to guess is confusion. Why he's confused, you have no idea.

"Gale. Hey." When his hand taps your shoulder, you do open your eyes, and make an attempt to not look as intimidated as you feel as you look up at him. (Why would you think it's a good idea to talk to someone when they're standing up and you're sitting down. Why.) "This hunt's for a bad bitch, yeah, but you're gonna be literally surrounded by Striders. It'll be fine."

"That's, uh—that's not—I didn't mean—" Now you can't talk again. This is just fucking great. Maybe if you close your eyes again? Keep your voice to a whisper, or something close to it? "...Hal doesn't trust me on a hunt."

The shikigami immediately proves you wrong by shouting from (presumably) the porch, "Dirk, Gale, get your asses out here or you can stay and have Seb and Jr babysit you too!"

D actually laughs. "Okay, so we got that sorted. Ready to go now?"

"Uh...yeah, I guess."

* * *

Hal and Dirk won't stop arguing, in the car. Truck. It's a truck. You can't call a truck a car, what's wrong with you? What are you _thinking_?

Well, mostly you're thinking that it's a good thing that Jake's driving, because John hasn't looked up once from his phone and Dirk's half turned around in his seat to argue with his twin about whether or not a ghost can possess a demon.

You're pretty sure the answer should be "no." However...

"Dirk, you fucking dumbass, this thing hops from body to body like warding marks aren't even there—"

"So it's something that doesn't give a fuck about the symbolism we use. That doesn't mean it's anything special."

"So you're going to stick with the explanation that the trained hunter who's actually on-scene is wrong?"

"She saw the thing for ten seconds, max, while it was ripping one of her partners' throats out—"

"Right, which a ghost could _definitely_ do—"

"They had a demon on the team!"

"So now you're saying the demon just up and—"

"I'm _saying_ that it's not a fucking ghost, Hal—"

"Really? It's not a ghost, even though they found items that could be physical triggers to manifestation?" Hal taps furiously at their phone for a moment, holding it up almost against Dirk's nose. "What the fuck does that look like to you? Huh? Inquisition-era artifacts obviously tied to a goddamn execution—"

You have to close your eyes and raise one hand to your face, drawing your fingers down from your forehead to your chest in one smooth motion. Usually, this silence spell is directed at someone else (Jr, who has issues with sensory overload, is who actually prompted you to come up with it) but it does work on you, when you need it to.

You need it to right now.

The stuff in the pic… a broken cup. A scorched candleholder. A book so damp and rotted with age that you couldn't even see the symbols that might have been on the cover… you shouldn't be this sure that it's a long-ruined siddur, but you know anyway. You shouldn't be a seer, but sometimes you still are, a little.

Whoever it was that died to cause this mess, however long ago it was...they died with the symbols of their faith on them. Tucked into their clothing, maybe, or under it, hidden from the people who killed them. _Wrongfully_ killed them. Murdered them. Shit, why are you so stuck on how they died? Hal was right when he said you shouldn't be trusted as a hunter, you feel sorry for a—

( _dybbuk_ , the part of your mind that listened and learned and tried so hard to be what you were born to be whispers)

—a ghost. They're a _ghost_. One dead long enough that all physical trace of their life has been reduced to a handful of belongings in a moldy box. Long enough that nobody has even the faintest idea of who they might have been

Except you. And you're too much of a coward to say anything.

 _No_. You may be a coward, but you're also wrong. It's just a ghost. An old ghost, maybe a powerful ghost, but still nothing more. Dybbuk don't exist. They're...an allegory. Or something. The rules of religion need some kind of threat behind them, right? That's all a dybbuk is.

That's all.

That's it.

You can calm down now.

No, you can't. You need to _tell_ them, let the hunters know what they might be going up against, and you _can't_ tell them—what if they ask how you know? They're going to ask where you even heard about this specific flavor of ghost, and what can you even tell them?

Not the truth. You can't tell them the truth. Never mind why, exactly, you just...

Okay, you're panicking. Badly. As in, nothing exists right now unless you open your eyes, and you can't do that—

Someone touches your shoulder, and your eyes snap open, but it's just Dave. And he's trying to talk to you. And you can't hear him. At all. Wait, fuck, why is Dave here? Why would they stop the cars? Trucks? Is he saying something that would answer those questions? Probably!

Shit. How do you dissolve this spell again? You should know, you really should know...

You don't know.

 _Shit._ You can't hear whatever Dave's saying, and you can't actually read lips. Thankfully, Dave seems to figure out that you've temporarily deafened yourself, because he almost immediately says something to Hal, and the shikigami starts signing at you, translating Dave's words.

 _He felt you._ Okay, maybe not quite translating. Paraphrasing. _Why?_

 _Why, spell? Or why—_ You gesture vaguely at your head, instead of spelling out _empath_. He'll know what you mean.

 _Empath._ Hal spells it out, though, and he taps his lips with one finger to redirect your attention to his face for a second. It's funny how easy it is to read the words "sensory overload."

When you nod (it's kind of true, right? You're not really lying to him, right?) Dave touches your shoulder again. When you look up, he taps his forehead, then gestures at you. It's a question, an obvious request for permission.

You...can't really say no. So you take a deep breath, lace your fingers together in your lap, wait for the magic inherent in that gesture to close the parts of your mind that you don't want anyone in, and nod.

Dave doesn't actually need to touch you to dig around in your mind; he can do it just as well without contact. He does touch you, though, leaning past Hal to rest one hand on your shoulder. You don't think he needs to close his eyes, either, but he does that as well.

You don't close your eyes. Cutting off another sense would mean you'd have that much more concentration available to focus on the sensation of Dave very carefully sifting around in your head. It's not like it hurts, but...yeah, it's a struggle to not just flick your fingers and throw him out of your mind.

On the plus side, concentrating on not doing that means that you lose your mostly-unconscious hold on the spell silencing the rest of the world. Which means that you get to hear the puzzled tone in Dave's voice, as he opens his eyes and says, "...dybbuk?"

"Dybbuk: a malicious possessing spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person; the name is related to a Hebrew word meaning to adhere or cling." Hal recites the information like a computer fetching requested files, then shakes his head. "Okay, we should put them on research with John, apparently. That makes more sense."

"But—" You didn't research anything. You don't really know _how_ to research anything. But if you tell them that, they're going to want to know why you _did_ know about this kind of creature. "Uh. Yeah. Sure, okay."

"Next hunt you can get right on that." Dave huffs, shaking a finger at Dirk. "And _you_ can quit fuckin' picking fights, yeah? You get Gale so fucked up I can feel them when I'm riding in a separate fucking truck again, and you're riding in the bed. You and Hal both."

You want to cringe, that someone else is getting yelled at because of you. Dirk, however, looks (at the most) mildly ashamed of himself, and Hal just grins as Dave swats their shoulder and slams the door shut again.

* * *

Dave obviously picks up on your fear of being called out for not knowing what to do, because within five minutes of Jake parking the truck in front of the (honestly really beautiful) church that this job's centered around, you see him grab D's shoulder and pull him aside. Neither of them look at you, but who else would they be talking about? Everyone else knows what's going on, you're the only dumb rookie here.

Why did they want you to come, again? Because it was a bad idea. A horrible idea.

Ugh.

Grey steps over to you before you pull yourself out of the _I don't belong here_ mindset, touching your shoulder gently. You realize why after a moment, and find a small smile for him.

"I, uh. I took the spell off."

"Good. I'm not as quick with sign language as you and the younger ones are." His smile is much less nervous, and (somehow) calming. "Can you come unload for John?"

"Mhm." If you know what you're supposed to do, you can handle this. You can totally handle this.

* * *

Hal flatly refuses to let you carry as many boxes at a time as you know you can, and honestly you'd rather take the extra steps than argue with them. So the four trips inside and back out you expected becomes twelve, which is...fine, actually. It means you can spend time actually _looking_ at the building, instead of just hurrying back and forth.

You've never really been inside a church before. Synagogues aren't built like this; you don't think anything is built like this, not anymore. The building must be a couple hundred years old, with high arched ceilings and stained glass windows more intricate than anything you've ever imagined.

It's funny. You weren't raised to believe that the higher power actually pays much attention to those who want to talk to him, but the sheer force of the architecture of this place almost makes you believe it anyway.

Christians are weird, but damn do you like their architecture.

Anyway.

You suspect that the main room should be full of benches or pews or whatever you call them, but the floor is currently clear. John's taking advantage of that with a chalk line and a can of powder spray, laying down a pale blue network of lines and symbols that you can't make any sense of. There's definitely sense to them, though; you see him consult a laptop set on the first stack of boxes you carried in, checking what he's marked out against the reference onscreen.

Wait.

Shit.

You know how you said you couldn't make any sense of John's binding circle? You lied. Or you were wrong. You understand exactly one line of the pattern, a series of characters sandwiched between the outermost line and the inner pattern, letters that you apparently aren't allowed to forget.

_יתגדל ןיתקדש שמה רבה..._

Shit. You don't just recognise that as Aramaic, you know what it _means._ It's the first line of the first kaddish that you ever memorized fully.

It's also misspelled.

_Shit._

Should you… do something? What, you don't know; it's not like that's going to have any impact on the circle, right? Jewish traditions don't have anything to do with the supernatural; if anything, erasing that whole portion would strengthen the circle as a whole. Right?

Right. But having it wrong is still going to mess everything up. Worse than it would anyway.

You need to tell John he's made a mistake. Maybe even just...fix it yourself. You know you can do that without ever going near the messed-up section; you can almost feel the right gestures to either correct the blocky letters or wipe that part away entirely. You should do one of those. The latter.

Instead, you go out for another box. You _can't_ tell him—knowing the mourner's kaddish isn't like knowing the word _dybbuk_. That could be just random knowledge you picked up who knows where; this is something that you can't explain away so easily. They'll _know._

And you can't just fix it yourself either. You don't trust yourself enough.

So you spend too much time choosing a box because you're trying not to panic, and when you come back into that great-ceilinged room John's erased the incorrect character and rewritten it. You're not sure whether your relief is natural or pathetic. Maybe both.

You pretend to not see the look of concern Dave gives you, and although he takes one single step towards you he doesn't press it.

* * *

Half an hour later Dirk taps your shoulder and waits for you to look at him before he says anything. (You wonder if your worry is obvious enough that he thinks you've pulled the silencing spell back up, or if he's just making sure you're paying attention.)

"D's going to say the summoning," he explains, nodding at where Grey's standing with one arm around D, examining the lines on the floor. "It's your choice whether you stay in here or go in the other room, but you need to be quiet and not touch the circle. Everything's safe, the ghost can't break this pattern—"

( _Ghost._ He's dismissed the idea of it being anything else.)

"—but _we_ can, anything physical can, so stay clear. Otherwise you'll be the safest out of all of us, yeah?" Dirk gestures at his own forehead, fingers unconsciously shaping the same sign you use to ward of psychic influence. "If you think you need to? Use that. On yourself, or us."

That's something you've never heard from anyone. The permission to use your powers on someone else. It unties one of the many knots in the center of your chest, one that you didn't even realize was there.

"Got it?" Dirk asks, and then pats your shoulder and walks back towards the growing huddle of real hunters as you back away towards the wall.

And it's too far away. And you're suddenly _scared_ , the kind of fear that'll break you if you let it go, and even the small noise of D questioning John about exactly how to summon what they're trying to catch is just too much, and—

Stop.

You draw your fingers down from forehead to collarbone, and everything but the beat of your heart goes silent. With that sensory input gone, you can just about manage to stand there with the colored light from the stained glass behind you outlining your shadow on the floor, watching Dirk pull Jake and John to one side of the room to join Hal, Grey walking with Dave and Karkat to the other side.

D's left there alone, head bowed. His back's to you; you can't see his face. Despite that, you know the exact moment that he begins to speak.

You _see_ it. Dark red smoke drifts out from D, and is almost immediately pulled down into each line on the floor. The transition from pale blue to glowing red seems to accelerate as it spreads outward from his feet; the closer it gets to complete, the more you can feel the power tugging at your core, at the source of whatever you can do that other people can't.

Holy shit it's _terrifying._ Why can't you back away? Because of the sheer magnetic force of the power in that circle?

You try not to think about what that would feel like to a disembodied spirit, and instead somehow end up with the mental image of a ghost in a box, trapped with nothing but the few things that the people who put it there saw fit to seal it up with. Even the _thought_ feels horrible...nothing deserves that. And they're about to do that again, aren't they? Shut the ghost up for even longer this time, forever—

Before you can get any further into the bottomless pit of feeling guilty for being a part of this job and feeling guilty _about_ feeling guilty, something bright and black flares in the center of the circle. Even as you instinctively cross your arms over your chest to pull up a barrier around yourself, you know that something's gone wrong.

Then the demon in the circle—shorter than you, dark-haired, fully human in appearance despite having just been summoned and despite their obvious distress—throws their head back and _howls._

The circle just shatters. You don't know why, but you see the red magic blow away like smoke in the wind, and D collapses at the thing's feet. On the other side of the room Grey screams his name and lunges for the dybbuk; you see it flinch before it whirls and snaps an arm out towards him, palm-out.

It's the same gesture you'd use. One you _have_ used, on three occasions, and instead of reacting to the fact that this thing just sent a hunter flying, probably hurt him if the sound he made hitting the wall is anything to go on, you're frozen by the fact that like you, the dybbuk is _terrified_ of being contained again, that's what that gesture is driven by...they're scared, and _you're_ scared too but instead of doing the smart thing, directing your powers into offense, you unfold your crossed arms, pulling your power outward, reforming it into a barrier that's a lot more tangible than the binding circle was.

The dybbuk lunges for Grey, and bounces off the air a few feet from where he's lying. Perfect.

Shit, no, not perfect, because it keens again and whirls to face _you._

"Wait, no—" You can't hold two barriers simultaneously; you know that without even trying. Which means that when the dybbuk gathers itself and pounces like some great cat, you can either stand still and get ripped apart, or dodge.

You dodge. It just barely keeps you out of range of those claws.

"I don't want—"

The dybbuk reorients itself, focuses on you, and snarls something in a language that sounds kind of like German. At least you think it does. When you're not afraid for your life, you know maybe ten words of German, and none of them are in that sentence. That brief hesitation is really useful to you, though, because it both confirms that you can't even try to talk your way out of this, and gives you time to remember the movements you've used for killing before.

They'd work on something that's mostly dead, too. You know they would, at least to wound the dybbuk enough for the hunters to capture it. But...

No. You can't.

It's horrible, but you can't bring yourself to take any action against the thing. The dybbuk doesn't deserve to be hated and hurt and imprisoned again, they deserve...

They deserve to be mourned. And even though you've spent a decade trying to forget, you still know something that you're willing to bet your life they'll understand.

The dybbuk looks at you and shrieks again, and you're not sure if that's fear or murder in their eyes but it doesn't matter either way, because you're already speaking.

"Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba, b’alma di-v’ra chirutei v’yamlich malchutei, b’chayeichon uvyomeichon uvchayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba’agala uvizman kariv, v’im’ru: amen." Translating in your head is automatic; it's not like you could ever forget either version. Not really. _Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name, throughout the world which He has created according to His will. May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days, and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon; and say, Amen._

You shouldn't flinch when the thing lunges at you, but you can't help it; neither can you stop yourself from throwing a hand out, fingers spread, sending out a wave of force powerful enough to knock them back a few steps. It doesn't hurt them. You hope it doesn't hurt them.

They've been hurt enough.

"Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya. Yitbarach v’yishtabach, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam v’yitnaseh, v’yithadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei d’kud’sha, b’rich hu, l’eila min-kol-birchata v’shirata, tushb’chata v’nechemata da’amiran b’alma, v’im’ru: amen." _May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity. Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored, adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He, beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen._

When you lower your hand, they don't try to advance again. Instead they just stand there as you pause to breathe, head cocked and otherworldly dark eyes fixed on you, and now you don't have to wonder if it's pain or fury in those eyes because you can _feel_ sorrow rolling off them like smoke, sorrow and confusion and centuries-old pain that wraps around the pity and grief that made you remember this kaddish in the first place.

"Y’hei shlama raba min-sh’maya v’chayim aleinu v’al-kol-yisrael, v’im’ru: amen." _May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen._

You stumble over the words in two places, and when the dybbuk takes another step towards you, you flinch again. Shit...you're going to die.

But you're also going to finish this. They deserve that much.

"Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu v’al kol-yisrael, v’imru: amen." _He who creates peace in His celestial heights, may He create peace for us and for all Israel; and say, Amen._

You speak the last syllable, and the dybbuk steps out of the demon it's possessing, letting them collapse as it takes another step towards you. Maybe you should back away, but you see the look in those shadowy eyes and you can't find it in yourself to fear.

It touches you. _They_ touch you, one hand coming up to just barely brush against your forehead.

“.אדם” _Son of Earth._

"I'm not-" The two words hurt your throat, and you close your eyes because something in you screams that you can't admit this to one who shares these roots with you. "I'm...that's not..."

The dybbuk makes the first real sound you've heard from them, a soft shushing noise like wind through leaves.

"?ילד רוח" _Child of Wind?_

"I—y-yes. Yes."

They wrap themself around you. You open your eyes at the last second, because if you're about to be possessed you need to see it happen, if you're going to die you'll do it with your eyes open...but all you see is light. _Warm_ light.

Then it's gone, and D wraps his arms around you just before you would've gone to your knees. And you're eighteen fucking years old, you're an adult by any meaning of the word, you can stand on your own—but you fall against him and grab for his shirt and don't even _try_ to not cry.

"Fuck, Gale—I got you, okay, Jesus fucking _shit_ —Karkat, Grey's—"

"Got him." The demon's voice is rough and not quite right; you know that he's nowhere near human right now.

D makes a choked sound of relief, trying to pull you off himself enough to get a look at your face. "Gale, holy shit—how the hell did you do that, I've never fuckin' heard of anyone using that kinda magic to exorcise a ghost—"

He probably stops because you're shaking your head hard enough to hurt. Definitely hard enough to blur your vision away. Or maybe that's tears. Yeah, that's tears.

"It wa—wasn't magic," you force out. "They weren't a _ghost,_ I—I d-didn't—"

 _I didn't exorcize them,_ you want to tell him, but you can't do anything but sob, and D seems to recognize this, because after a second he pulls you back in and wraps his arms around you. It's permission to stop trying to explain, and you willingly accept it.

* * *

Eventually, Grey takes you from D, scooping you up in his arms like you don't weigh a thing and carrying you into another of the church's rooms. This one's a lot smaller, more like something you might find in a normal building...and it also lacks the overwhelming aura of sorrow that the dybbuk left behind.

As soon as the door shuts behind you, the tears turn off. That's the only way you can put it; it's like flipping a switch. Doesn't leave you any less bewildered, though.

Grey looks down at you when you go limp, eyes flickering to red for a moment. "Gale?"

"...sorry."

"Why?"

Now how the heck are you supposed to even try to answer that? Well, other than reaching up to just barely brush your fingers over the new scar on the side of his head.

"It happens." He shrugs slightly, glancing back over his shoulder. "The nice thing about having this kind of demon on the team is that injuries don't last long...will you be all right if I leave you in the truck for a couple minutes?"

"I—" Oh you _really_ don't want to be left alone. Like, you don't want to talk to anyone, you're not even sure if you _can_ talk to anyone, but you don't want to be alone. "Uh...I..."

From the look on his face, he knows exactly what's going through your head. "So, no."

" ...yeah. No."

"I'll call D and have him meet us in the truck."

* * *

You fall asleep before D comes out, and don't wake up until Dave nudges you awake in the safehouse driveway. When you do wake up, you really don't want to.

Not that it matters. You shrug at the look Dave gives you, let yourself be led back into the house and to the kitchen. When Grey pushes you to sit down at the table and the other three hunters pull out the chairs to sit as well, you give up on the hope that you're going to get away without saying anything.

At least no one asks you anything. They just wait for you to start talking.

Unfortunately, it's a full five minutes before you even try that.

"...um. I..." Oh for the love of all that's holy. Come on, Gale, you can talk just fine. "I'm—"

Here's part of the problem: you don't know what to say. _I am_ is not the right way to start, that much you know.

“We just wanna know what you did out there,” Dave offers, opening his hands in a gesture that even you have to read as nonthreatening. “That was some brave shit you pulled.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Grey agrees. “What kind of magic was that?”

Ok. Yeah, this is both super easy and the most excruciating question you can currently think of.

“It—” you begin, your throat closing up almost immediately. You take a minute, steadying your breathing as you wave down Dave’s offer to take over. “It wasn’t—I didn’t use magic.”

They puzzle over that for a bit. “How do you mean?” Grey finally volunteers.

You can do this. “Well, those artifacts were from the Inquisition, right?” You reply, D nodding subtly in confirmation. “Yeah, well, the ghost —” _Fuck,_ you think to yourself. “—the dybbuk—they were murdered. With most of the people they knew. They became a dybbuk because there wasn’t anybody left who could… mourn them.”

D leans back in his chair, his face plastered by a look of intrigue. Dave mirrors the expression, but leans forward instead, his chin propped up on his hands.

“So,” you continue. “They got mad, y’know? Just like a regular ghost. And they...they lashed out. But some people, they sealed them away to stop that. They were trapped for so long that they—couldn't remember anything besides being trapped. People always looked at them with…fear. and anger. They didn’t know what it meant to be mourned. Not genuinely anyway.”

You pause, thinking of what to say next. “That’s all I did. I mourned for them.”

Dave and D just look at each other. Grey breaks the silence. “I guess you can’t beat good ol’ fashioned empathy, eh?”

"...Yeah," you reply. "Guess not."

“I’m gonna fill Hal in on this if you don’t mind.” D says. “This might say something about how the sigil work didn’t do shit.”

You want to ask what he means, but you feel more like passing out.“Yeah, go ahead. ..can I go?”

“Of course.” Grey says, not looking to either of the others for the approval you know they’d have. “You’ve been through a lot today. Go rest.”

His warm smile helps a bit at least. “Thanks.”

* * *

This isn’t a nightmare. You know that much. But it isn’t exactly pleasant either. That's not weird by itself, you have that kind of dream pretty much every night. This is normal, just go to sleep.

The thing about that is the Hebrew phrase looping through your mind would only ever come in a nightmare.

___Ve’emet Adonai L’olam.__ _

Shut up.

___Ve’emet Adonai L’olam.__ _

Shut up!

___Ve’emet Adonai L’olam.__ _

You sit up and switch on the lamp beside the bed, rubbing your eyes against the sudden yellow flare.

 ___Ve’emet Adonai L’olam.___ _ _ _And the truth of God endures._ __You translate it in your head, not through knowledge of the language but out of that phrase being repeated to you like a mantra.

You know it’s not true though. It’s one thing to say that God saves, or listens to prayer, but it’s another to say that there’s any truth to any of this. God’s truth is that you’re a boy, which is pretty far off the mark right off the bat. You know this. You lived this. Why are you still so hung up on it?

You look up suddenly at the sound of a soft knock on the door. Christ, if you woke Dave up with sheer stress you’re gonna scream.

But it’s D. “Hey,” he starts quietly. “Saw your light on. How’s it hanging?”

Who the hell knows? “I’m, I’m doing better,” you manage.

“I’m glad. S’ there anything I can do for you?”

“No. I’m alright.” The words barely leave your mouth before you can tell he doesn’t buy that.

He sighs. “I know you like your privacy, and I wanna respect that as much as I can. But I’ve never seen anything fuck you up this bad for so long.” He stold for a second, running his hand through his already messed up hair. “I may not be an empath, but I can tell somebody ripping themself up when I see it.”

You shove down your thoughts of he caught you he caught you he knows you lied, and take a deep breath to give yourself time to try to figure out what to say.

“My—my family.” OK, it’s a start. “They were Jewish.”

“I guessed.”

“Yeah…” D sits down next to you, and you shift slightly to face him. “They always talked about how—God answers prayer and stuff.” Fuck, how is it this hard to put this shit into words? “He never listened to me much though.”

You half expect D to chuckle at that, but he just nods sympathetically.

“I just—I couldn’t take it anymore, y’know? They kept talking about how- how God cared about me and would help me. But he never did. I knew deep down he never would. ” Ok, don’t cry yet. The least you can do for D is get out a coherent thought for once in your life. “He. He’s not the benevolent saviour everybody said he is.”

You suddenly find yourself raising your voice. “They—They were just words! They didn’t mean anything. It was just gibberish. But then today, with the dybbuk-” Breathe, damn it. Breathe. “...it. It was different. Like, I used the words differently. Wrong.”

“How do you mean?” D asks, after you pause.

“You’re supposed to have ten people with you when you say it.” You answer. “And a special leader to recite it. But it was just me, I fucked it up.” You twist the fabric of the sheets through your fingers, balling it into your fists. “So why the hell did it work?”

Weirdly, he doesn’t hesitate. “Did you use it wrong, or just differently?”

Huh. “...What?”

“Well, my grandma.” He shrugs, grinning for a second. “She was Jewish too. My mom never rubbed it off on us, hunters bein’ busy and all. But I remember some of the stuff ol’ Bubbe taught me.”

What the fuck? “Like what?”

“Well for one thing, she was all for… relativity of traditions. I mean, her daughter was a hunter for fuck sake, she knew more about how diverse the world is than anyone.” He slowly turns to face you a bit more as he keeps talking. “She could tell right off that you can’t just prescribe how to be a good person with a set rulebook. Everybody has their own needs, so the traditions should shift to make room for those folks.”

“Is—is that possible?”

“Oh hell yeah it is!” He laughs softly, a wide grin spreading across his face. “My strongest memory of her was the time she officiated a gay vampire wedding. Chuppah and all.”

“...how?”

“Well, it’s like you said a second ago.” He folds his hands in his lap. “God’s not some magical sugar daddy whose gonna solve all your problems. I’m not in on all that anymore, but I know that a relationship with God is exactly that: A relationship. It’s a partnership. He’s not a king or a father, not as much as a friend.” He hesitates. “... Or a lover. Depending on who you ask.”

...that’s cool, but, “What does that have to do with me?”

“Like I said, I don’t know much specifically about this kinda shit. All I know is that just like any relationship, you need communication. You have to know what you want and need, what your limits are. That’s what prayer is.”

When you don’t reply, he keeps going. “Look, I’m not telling you to go back to all this. All i’m saying is if you were raised by the same zealots I’m thinking of, they didn't exactly teach you the right stuff. Maybe setting the record straight will help you figure this out better.”

Ok. You can tell when your nerve reaches its end. Might as well cry one more time, right? You lean into D and he wraps his arm around your shoulder, reaching for your hand with the other arm. The two of you sit and sway for a minute as your clear the waterworks again.

You. You think you see now. It wasn’t God’s truth that said you were a freak. It wasn’t God’s truth that turned His house into Egypt. It wasn’t God’s truth which drove you to the edge, that nearly killed you. You weren’t driven from your home by His word. It was the fault of man that destroyed you.

_Ve’emet Adonai l’olam va’ed._

And the Truth of God endures forever, whatever that may be.

And, weirdly? You'd be lying if you said you didn't want to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> [Moodboard for Gale here,](https://i.imgur.com/LsFywec.png) made by [caspurrs](http://www1.flightrising.com/forums/art/2632810/1) on flight rising!
> 
> [art of gale](https://knight-of-heart-and-art.tumblr.com/post/183471103801/aceo-gale) by fluffywuffyrabbits on tumblr!


End file.
